Thursday, June 16, 2016

Apple is Ready to Transform the "Smart House" Industry

New homebuyers today have many things to choose from: wood floors or tile, granite or stainless steel countertops, central air or window units. But later this year, you'll be able to decide if you want to make your space a fully Apple-supported smart home, built from the ground up.

Tucked into Apple’s two-hour-long new product presentation at its Worldwide Developers Conference earlier this week was a blink-and-you-missed-it tidbit that hinted largely at where the smart home industry is headed. In fact, three home builders — Brookfield Residential, Lennar and KB Home — are now committed to building homes later this year that come with built-in Apple HomeKit infrastructure. HomeKit is Apple's software framework that smart gadget builders use to make their devices iOS-compatible. For customers, the label means the device (say, a smart light bulb) will work seamlessly with the iPhone and Siri.

registered trademark for Apple's HomeKit

For homebuilders, though, HomeKit bestows confidence that a set of devices will work within a specific platform. With that knowledge, rather than the owner adding smart home gadgets such as automated locks, cameras, blinds, thermostats and air quality monitors to a home piece by piece, homebuilders can install the devices before you move in and make sure the infrastructure is equipped to handle them.